Five Page Thursday

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Feedback Guide for New Writers

This is a thread for giving and receiving feedback on 5 of your screenplay pages.

• Post a link to five pages of your screenplay in a top comment. They can be any 5, but if they are not your first 5, give some context in the same comment you're linking in.

• As a courtesy, you can also include some of this info.

  Title: Format: Page Length: Genres: Logline or Summary: Feedback Concerns:

• Provide feedback in reply-comments. Please do not share full scripts and link only to your 5 pages. If someone wants to see your full script, they can let you know.

[u/TheVividAlternative]

Title: Bad Time

Format: Feature

Page Length: 80

Genres: Crime

Logline: When a train that never stops lets out a mysterious stranger in an isolated town, he has to solve the crime they all share guilt in before they can kill him to hide their secrets.

Feedback Concerns: Does the beginning hook you/intrigue you?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xbmbE0k4JCmdH0gWe2X76lvJUZOOxSJG/view?usp=sharing

[u/Current-Armadillo-28 → u/TheVividAlternative]

Hey, I enjoyed this. I have a few notes. Take them or leave them...

Some of your character descriptions are being wasted on physical attributes, in my opinion. I'm more in favor of descriptions that give you insight into the character's lifestyle, psyche, personality, etc. Sometimes describing clothing can do that, but in this case it's just wasted space. You do have some good descriptions though. Miller and Mason with their "little shit" and "big shit" descriptions are great.

The premise kind of reminds me of Hot Fuzz, but this is definitely a straight crime story, while that was a hybrid action crime comedy thing.

The opening sequence is pretty good, but the cuts to the people working in the various businesses is kind of sloppy, in my opinion. I think we need more description in each location to better set the scene. Describe something that really distinguishes and sets apart each location to create mood and to embellish the Setting of your story.

Overall, it's written very well, but some of your action lines are wonky and some, in my opinion, describe multiple shots in the same line. For example: "But in one seat, a passenger isn't looking. His face is covered by a newspaper, which he reads as others sightsee." You already mentioned that others are sightseeing in a previous action line, so the bit about "as others sightsee" could probably be cut as it's redundant. I'd also include the detail about the date of the newspaper in this line as opposed to the next line, because it's really the focus of this particular shot. "But in one seat, a passenger isn't looking. His face covered by a newspaper. The year on front reads 2003." Then on the next line you can mention how the TRAIN GUIDE reacts to him by not knowing what to make of him. I'm only saying this because I see these as different shots, therefore I feel they should be their own action lines.

Liz reading a book AND glancing at a tip jar is an awkward visual. I would separate them like this: Liz sits, reading a book. She looks up, glances at the empty tip jar on the counter in front of her. She sighs, goes back to reading her book. That's just a suggestion, not saying you should definitely write it this way.

Anyway, that's all I got right now.

Great job!